This is the program I use to do my own genealogy. But be forewarned, it will not print box charts until version 2.

11 Dec 2003 Update: RootsMagic 1.04b has been released. I downloaded it from RootsMagic's web site (its free). At this stage, the author seems to be fixing problems most users do not have.

1 May 2003 Update: I have only had a few hours to play with RootsMagic 1.01 (version 1.0 patched), but all my major gripes seem fixed.

What is a software developer to do when his great genealogy program is left dangling in the wind by a company that has its marketing rights sown up tight?

Family Origins author Bruce Buzbee had little choice but to walk away from his claim to fame and start again. 

He was going to call his new program RootsMate, but that led to potential legal hassles. Toward the end of a two year plus development cycle, he renamed it RootsMagic, and promised it would be available before Christmas 2002.

It wasn't. Beta testing took longer than expected. The deadline slipped, then slipped again. Luckily, Bruce has a loyal following of users who had faith in him. Most stuck it out. Bruce promised the end of January 2003, but even missed that self-imposed deadline by a day. I received my copy about 10 days later by mail.

Bruce had promised RootsMagic would be even better than Family Origins, even though for legal reasons, it had to be written from scratch. In some ways it is. In other ways it will be. Unfortunately, in too many ways version 1.0 was not. But Bruce released a patch (a free download from www.rootsmagic.com) on 30 Apr 2003, and a subsequent patch 10 days later.

Bruce apparently forgot Software Development Rule One: version 1.0 of any product is always buggy. Within days of its release, version 1.0 users were compiling a list of things that didn't work and sequences of usage that would reportedly crash the program. (I have not been able to crash my copy, but I also haven't tried too hard.) 

Bruce has promised to post a downloadable bug fix on his web site ASAP, and I believe him. Bruce's track record has earned my trust. In fact, if Bruce's estimated schedule isn't derailed, that patch should be available any day now. In the meantime, I am still using Family Origins, and not recommending RootsMagic -- yet.

Which is too bad, because RootsMagic is, as Bruce promised, even better than Family Origins. Which means that I will, in all probability, be recommending it just days from now.

RootsMagic provides more book publishing formats, more web site format options, and dozens of tweaks that will enhance my genealogy. That's why I included a demo version of RootsMagic on the Workshop CD.